One of the inevitable by-products of any U.S. military strike on a foreign country is the sudden appearance of “military analysts” on cable news. The networks keep a handy “go-to” list of these folks ostensibly to provide context to whatever action is being taken and “explain” it to the viewing public, usually accompanied by some colorful maps and graphics. The failed War on Iraq instigated by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was awash with these “analysts,” who in large part contributed to the disinformation spoon-fed to the American public about that catastrophe, and actively aided and abetted prolonging it until its dismal conclusion.
Most of these analysts are retired military and now employed in the private sector, often in some capacity for defense contractors. But they are always ready to leap into all military discussions as a voice of solemn authority. And as found in an in-depth, 2008 analysis conducted by The New York Times regarding their ubiquitous television presence during the Iraq war, nearly all of them invariably heaped praise on whatever military actions were being taken in that fiasco.
"To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as 'military analysts' whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
"Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance . . . The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.”
Immediately after this week's Trump-ordered airstrikes which killed, among others, Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani, CNN dug up one of these wind-up analysts by the name of General James Marks. Marks had the good fortune to be preceded by the statements of Democratic Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) who, asked about his views of those attacks, criticized the wisdom of Trump’s decision to make a martyr of Soleimani, an action that had been considered and rejected by both Republican and Democratic administrations as being counterproductive. Murphy had voiced those same concerns, opining that the act of deliberately assassinating Soleimani could set off a regional war.
Marks, who owns the dubious distinction of being the “senior intelligence officer for coalition land forces during the Iraqi invasion,” was quick to put Sen. Murphy in his place.
Appearing on CNN’s New Day, Maj. General James “Spider” Marks (Ret.) scolded Murphy for criticizing the administration for acting without a go-ahead from Congress.
“What I would say to Senator Murphy is, why don’t you just be quiet?” Marx said — eliciting chuckles from CNN anchors and panelists off screen. “Look, when has Iran ever demonstrated self-restraint? I mean, that’s the question I have. So is the world more dangerous today? Maybe it’s more dangerous. But when has it not been dangerous? When have we not been a target of a regime like exists in Tehran? I mean, it happens as a matter of routine.”
[emphasis supplied]
The circular stupidity of Marks’ argument aside, it is the knee-jerk impulse to silence any criticism of military action that is more concerning. It smacks of the squelching of dissent and the branding of criticism as “unAmerican” that was all too common in the years that the Bush administration propagandized the Iraq war.
No, Mr. General, not this time. We will not “be quiet.” After the Iraq disaster, which you played a large part in creating, we will never “be quiet” again. And anyone with the gall to tell an American citizen to “be quiet” about his country’s military actions, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, deserves to be taken to the woodshed and repeatedly spanked.
Here was Marks in 2004, yammering to Lou Dobbs on Fox News about American operations in Falluja at the time.
DOBBS: Of course, the very thing that makes insurgency so difficult is that they sometimes in this case, do not have a flag, and secondly, are not interested in planning it, but rather than tearing one down. You're confident we are in good shape here?
MARKS: Well, we are in good shape. But it is a long. And it's a tough endeavor that the coalition forces are about. Counterinsurgency is defined by its lack of uncertainty, lack of clarity, all combat is.
As noted by Wikipedia, the second battle of Falluja turned out to be the bloodiest battle involving U.S. troops since the Vietnam war. And by September 2006, the city was entirely under the control of Iraqi insurgents. But I digress.
Nor are cable channels limiting their “blanket coverage” of the U.S. strikes to go-to hacks like Marks. As noted by Charles Pierce in Esquire, in just the past 48 hours we’ve seen the blood-soaked heads of former Iraq War cheerleaders like former Bush Administration press secretary Ari Fleischer pop out of the ground on Fox News like some perverse game of whack-a-mole.
Incredibly, Fleischer was invited on simultaneously with Karl Rove, another relentless Bush liar who thought he could make up all the answers. Already, you can feel these ghouls coalescing around the same strategies: focus only on how Soleimani was a bad guy, not whether the U.S. can justify killing him or it was a wise decision for the long term; accuse any dissenters of supporting Soleimani or the Iranian regime or terrorism; accuse any dissenters of hating America or failing to support the troops; speak vaguely about "imminent" threats to American lives that have been thwarted; and of course, declare that rank-and-file citizens of Iraq and Iran will absolutely love this.
Fleischer, who probably spends every night before he goes to sleep frantically trying to pick the dried blood out of his fingernails, reprised his role as a Bush war propagandist by asserting that Iranians would greet Soleimani’s death as some sort of joyful “liberation.”
"I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani"
The relentless jackassery of these people would be comical if its consequences weren’t so deadly. The photograph below shows the actual reaction of Iranians to the Soleimani’s assassination.
But, fortunately, this is not 2004, and fortunately the internet never forgets. We will not be told to “be quiet,” particularly when the military action is at the behest of an administration of incompetents, liars and grifters. We will not be cowed, shamed, or silenced into blindly accepting whatever lies this administration or its enablers in the military pundit class try to pass off. Because we remember what happened the last time we did that.
Pierce expresses it well:
These people should be shunned by polite society. Their incapacity for self-reflection, and their inability to process the gravity of what they've done, are genuinely frightening character traits. Just go away! Fuck off! You've done enough! Thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead because these chickenhawk lunatics told themselves they knew all there was to know about a region they couldn't possibly begin to understand. How many more American soldiers are too gravely injured to play in the backyard with their kids? How many still endure sleepless nights, cursed with the memories of what they saw during their time in hell?
The video of Marks telling an elected U.S. Senator to “be quiet” is below.